Behind the Smile

Behind the Smile is an inside look at the world of Caribbean tourism as seen through the lives of the men and women in the tourist industry in Barbados. The workers represent every level of tourism, from maid to hotel manager, beach gigolo to taxi driver, red cap to diving instructor. These highly personal accounts offer insight into complex questions surrounding tourism: how race shapes interactions between tourists and workers, how tourists may become agents of cultural change, the meaning of sexual encounters between locals and tourists, and the real economic and ecological costs of development through tourism. This new edition updates the text and includes several new narratives and a new chapter about American students' experiences during summer field school and home stays in Barbados.

George Gmelch is Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Francisco and Union College. He has studied Irish Travellers, commercial fishermen, Alaska natives, Caribbean villagers and tourism workers, and American professional baseball players. He is the author of eleven books, including (with Sharon Bohn Gmelch) Tasting the Good Life: Wine Tourism in the Napa Valley (Indiana University Press, 2011) and The Parish behind God's Back: The Changing Culture of Rural Barbados.